You are the bridge, the altar, the vessel, the medicine. Your body is the shrine. Your breath is the offering. Tend to yourself with reverence. Everything you seek already lives within you.
It's such a fucking shame that everyone hates Zeus because they took the myths too literally because a God King of hospitality, foreigners and the protector of immigrants would be SUCH a good guy to be calling on right now. I literally cannot think of a better god to call on for current political issues but suuure enjoy sitting on your mythic literalism high horse guys
Regardless of its original intent or the quality of the messages within the bible, Christianity as it exists today functions as a social poison.
There are many causes for it being this way, some from the bible itself and others from social movements and non-canon beliefs, but I think the most essential root cause of it is relatively simple. At its core, the most fundamental Christian belief is that there are two kinds of people: bad people (sinners) and good people (christians).
Regardless of belief in redemption, to instill within someone not only the notion that the in-group is good and the out-group is evil, but also the idea that anyone who engages in even a single non-approved behavior immediately joins that out-group (sinners) has consequences. It will, inevitability and always, result in that belief system warping and twisting upon itself to fit whatever narrative the people want at the time.
In this environment, to oppress a group you do not need to convince yourself that the group's actions are bad, only that they are connected to the out-group in any way. Because all sins are equal, no matter how small.
It is easy to ignore and misinterpret many passages from the bible so you can redifine anyone as "good" or "bad" based on whatever criteria you want. And since it takes enormous emotional strength to label oneself as "bad," it will always be reinterpreted to say "I am good and those who are not like me are bad." Even if someone DOES recognize flaws in their own behavior, disagreement with other Christians can result in losing friends, family, jobs, and everything else. Nearly no one will do it.
You can have 100 passages in the bible preaching acceptance and love, but words are not what survives within a culture for centuries... values are. The culture of Christianity will outlive the bible, it is stronger. As of now, that culture is venomous.
There are other poisons within fundamental Christian belief, such as an innate hate for the body and pleasure, the non-sanctity of nature, or the idea that one does not own their own body as it belongs to god; but even each of these would lesson in impact if the "us vs them" mindset did not exist.
How the "divine feminine" and the "divine masculine" perpetuate patriarchy - and what we can do about it
One thing the occult is very good at is coming up with systems to categorize and conceptualize things. These can be incredibly useful to us in various ways. But we also have to remember that these systems we come up with are mere constructs, and the actual world itself probably doesn't conform to them as we might like. As the saying goes, all maps are wrong. But as the saying also goes, some maps are useful, and some are more useful than others.
One thing that often comes up in esoteric and occult systems are various forms of binaries or polarities. This often makes sense; for example, without light, you have dark. Without heat, you have cold. One party gives, the other takes. Creatures are born, and eventually they die.
But we can run into problems when we start trying to lump all apparent forms of polarities and dualities together. Here's an example: Life/Death, Masculine/Feminine. In doing this, we create an association that might lead us toward some terrible ways of thinking about real people. If we associate masculinity with death, we can find ourselves thinking that waging war and inventing weapons of death is just what men and masc people do, but women can always be counted on to be diplomats and peacekeepers. Or if we associate femininity with death, we might find ourselves more inclined to think that women and femmes have a natural desire to commit infanticide and tear apart societies, and they must be carefully watched and their freedoms limited so they don't upend civilization and endanger the human race.
These are of course extreme examples, but they are real ways that some people think. And you might think to yourself, "well, I don't polarize genders this way, I think people should try to be a healthy balance of masculine and feminine." And if this is you, I want you to ask yourself why you're so attached to categorizing traits as "masculine" and "feminine" at all.
If you're like most people, you probably just came across this in some form of occult or spiritual literature and just adopted it without really asking yourself too many questions about it. When we see something framed as ancient or higher wisdom, it's pretty easy to take it fairly uncritically, especially if it aligns with our unconscious biases in some way. It often doesn't cross our minds to ask where these terms really come from, and what they signified in their original contexts.
You may have heard that male/female stuff has roots in alchemy, which is true. But the thing with alchemy is that it was using familiar terms and concepts to describe chemical processes and reactions. Think of it a little bit like how we use terms like "male plugs" and "female plugs." While old-time alchemy did have a spiritual component to it, it was more about believing that you had to be spiritually pure to make your desired alchemical reactions happen. When alchemy gave way to chemistry, and people began to realize that your spiritual condition had nothing to do with your ability to make things happen in the lab, certain people began to seek more mystical meanings in the works of alchemists, and this idea of masculinity and femininity as transcendent mystical forces unto themselves really started to emerge. It was an incredibly easy concept to project on all kinds of mythologies, because a lot of myths have male and female figures interacting in various ways.
Now the thing is, having myths with male and female figures doesn't mean seeing masculinity and femininity as discrete forces or powers unto themselves. It can mean that they simply personified various figures as male or female depending on what their own experiences and cultural biases suggested to them. For example, straight men tend to think of love and lust as something they experience when they see a beautiful woman. In a patriarchal society, where men are calling most of the shots in conceptualizing the divine, a love deity is thus likely to be personified as a beautiful woman. Straight men can also see beautiful women as a source of discord and strife, so it makes sense that love goddesses would have war aspects to them.
A society where men are sent to war while wives are left behind to raise the children and tend the farm is going to produce an association with men and violence, while the act of nurturing will be associated with women. Men who deny higher education to women are going to produce a society where intellectual pursuits and higher abstract reasoning are associated with masculinity, and intuition and practical knowledge are associated with women. A society where men are seen as bringers of social order and upholders of civilization while women are viewed more like forces of nature than rational actors will associate men with civilization and women with natural, wild spaces.
In continuing to associate these characteristics with the "divine feminine" and the "divine masculine," we preserve and perpetuate the implicit biases created by these patriarchal societies. And while there is absolutely value in saying, "hey, these 'feminine' things are actually valuable and worth respect actually," framing them as intrinsically feminine in any sense - physically, psychologically, or metaphysically - will undermine any effort to dismantle patriarchy and bring true equality.
So what can you do? I would suggest being more specific.
Do you mean passive/active? Then just say it.
Do you mean giver/receiver? Then just say it.
Do you mean harmonizing/disrupting? Then just say it.
Whatever you have filed under boxes labeled "masculine" and "feminine," you can simply take them out of those boxes and find better categories for them.
I have a little spiritual woowoo to me so I Am familiar with some freaky neopagan/new age/etc stuff & every time I'd be like "hmm I'm getting a weird vibe from all the bioessentialist gender fertility stuff, what's up with that?" & I'd look it up & it's like "the founder made all of this up based on appropriating other cultures he didn't understand as well as fabricating historical documents, to make as many women have sex with him as possible" & I say Oh ok. And this is like really easily accessible information but people are still being grifted into buying penis candles for their fake ancient rituals
Yep, wicca is absolutely not an "ancient" witch cult. No one who has any clue has seriously believed that since the 90's. But its roots are more nuanced than one dude making shit up. It's the result of various long lines of several people making shit up, most prominent of them in fact being a woman (Doreen Valiente). Largely what is known today as wicca was influenced by the wider scene of Western occultism/esotericism of the late 1800's, which has its own roots in various sources: from appropriated Judaic practices to Greco-Roman Hermeticism of the late antiquity. If Ordo Templi Orientis or Golden Dawn don't ring any bells, maybe talk less, listen more when it comes to wicca and its roots.
There was Alex Sanders, who is one person who practiced British traditional withcraft (="wicca") who might be the tree so many people are barking up when they throw in the pervy old man accusations (no hate to the Alexandrian sis' and bros, but we should acknowledge when our folk have done things not in line with our own morality, his lovers and wife were apparently very young). G.B. Gardner (original founder of the initatory line of British traditional witchcraft, nowadays known as wicca) was just a regular old nudist, and apparently, a decent man, from what I've heard second-hand from people who actually knew him personally (some of them still live, but indeed they are very old by now). I don't know about his relationships, except that he was married with a wife.
No wiccan I know and have practiced with insists on the bioessentialism, or the concept of fertility as a cisheteronormative reproductive thing. As far as I've understood, it's a vocal minority of wiccans in the USA who have such views, the USA culture having a tendency for fundamentalism overall. No hate to the sis' and bros in USA covens who are doing their thing, you do you, and I know not all of you are trans-exclusionary etc. As the eclectic wiccans especially love to quote: "and it harm none, do what you will." Fun fact: Rede is not in fact the wiccan bible. Another fun fact: that quote is most likely Aleister Crowley's influence, and if most eclectics knew this, and who A. Crowley even was, they wouldn't likely so happily quote that bit. That's the real dude you should be cancelling! (I appreciate him as a magician and poet, but holy shit my dude!)
My point being: even those who say "know where your spirituality comes from" don't often know where it comes from. Who's seldom contributing to these conversations about wicca is actual practitioners of wicca. Eclectic wiccans are valid, they're doing their own thing, but they often don't know, are not even interested, or dont have access to actual lore of the craft, so often they are ill-equipped to refute these kinds of broad-stroke accusations. They might even be part of the real problems people do perceive: appropriation, spiritual commercialism, cults of personality, fascist pipelines... And they do these things while calling themselves wiccans, which I am in no position to refute, but it does give us all a bad name.
And I know there are those among us traditional wiccans too, who will have different opinions from mine: some wiccans will be bioessentialist, maybe even fascist. Some, like myself, are trans, and embraced fully in my corner of the community. Some of us will have done bad things, like abuse others. We are all human, no group is immune to having these people among their number. (And we don't have to accept or get along with everyone, in my opinion). But I also know that we British Traditional Witchcraft practitioners aka traditional wiccans, as a community, are aware of these issues, we talk about it, and our history; it's wrongs, and we acknowledge, reflect, and adapt, and find ways to be more inclusive and non-appropriative. That's not "changing the craft", that's being a living tradition.
All that said, I'm just one wicca and I in no way represent the community as a whole, or even my coven. My opinions are my own and my experiences in the craft are personal to me.
I'm not an open book, but I would direct sincere inquirers to more eloquent sources.
Also many initiated wiccans are very dedicated and knowledgeable scholars, either as a hobby, or actually in the academics, of history, archeology, and theology, and study ancient religions from a scientific perspective. They then kindly educate the rest of us, what was likely real and what has been made up (including by Gardner in the mid 1900's) and we can choose to do with that information as we want. There's a movement away from faked or misunderstood history, and the tendency to claim all rituals we wiccans do are of actually ancient origins, because they are not. No one in my immediate vicinity in the craft is saying or believing that. And that's a non-issue to me and the traditional wiccans I have practiced with. It's not the point to roleplay as ancient peoples, we are here and experiencing things now, and we adapt.
If someone had a wiccan phase in their teens after reading outdated or biased material, and was disappointed they didn't discover a genuine, ancient witch cult after all, and got bitter, starting to diss wicca as a whole, well, too bad for them. If someone had an annoying roommate who was likely this person before they discovered the same, well, that's awkward I guess. There's books out there, by multitude of authors who may or may not have genuine intentions, anyone can read them and call themselves a wicca. This "anyone" will include many kinds of people, some of who will be annoying, or even dangerous. But aside from the eclectics, even among the traditional (initiatory) wiccans, we are not a monolith. Most importantly, we are not an USAmerican monolith. It's just that the USA wiccans seem to dominate the online discourse, especially those with hinge beliefs about gender and bioessentialism (they are not even the majority of wiccans, at least not in Europe). The scene may look very different to US over here in Europe overall, due to local culture and history. I'm sure it's swarming with grifters over in the US, and they are here in Europe too, but they're not all there is.
Just like with any religion, there are those who seek their own benefit on others' expense. They're hard to completely avoid in any group. If you seek religious or spiritual community, around those communities will be those who want power over others. We try to spot those folk and be wary of them. But no religion is free of abusers, grifters and hopeful cult leaders; not Christians, not wiccans. But some people do find meaning and fulfillment in religion and being in related communities, and while seeking them is an exercise in critical thinking and self-reflection of what it is that we truly seek, the good ones are out there. Whether it's worth it for you, or you have been burned too many times, that's your prerogative to decide.
But if there are seekers of traditional wicca out there, who want a community but are afraid that all they'll find is cultish woo-woo, I would say: keep seeking, be critical, and ask around. Be wary of isolated groups whom no-one in the wider community knows, or who try to isolate you. Never pay for teaching; aside from covering material costs, wiccans never teach the craft for profit, and certainly never ever sell initiations for money, or anything else. Don't be pressured into sex, this will not be required, and anyone claiming otherwise is a predator, not someone worth practicing with or learning from. I can warmly recommend Thorn Mooney's book on seeking traditional wicca, though it is from an USAmerican perspective, so your mileage may wary depending where you're from. And lastly, if you're gay, trans, other, person of color, there is a wiccan community for you, if you seek it. You are welcome. One person or one coven does not speak for all of us. Some covens will accommodate more than others, but I know some covens are fully gender neutral in their ritual language, for example. Some are led by trans high priestesses and priests or nonbinary priestixes. All of them have been welcome to the wider community (speaking for my experience in Europe).
Again, I'm not a completely open book, but I will try to answer sincere inquiries about wicca/traditional wicca the best I can.
I’m curious on your thoughts of Wicca’s every goddess fits into the triple moon goddess and every male god fits into the horned god idea? I’m not Wiccan personally, but I’m attempting to get a feel of what other witches feel about it. Is the idea appropriation/colonisation of other gods? I’ve heard it’s harmful and I genuinely ask this as I think it’s an interesting thought
I'm going to bring back the wisdom of the ever wise @traegorn, my favorite Wiccan, again here.
The problem is not Wicca. The problem is white people.
'the problem is not wicca, the problem is white people' is a pretty bold stance to take when the founder of wicca was a literal white supremacist. wicca is the problem, because it is white
Okay, I'm going to need you to cite some sources here.
Was Gardner a racist? I mean, he was an upper-middle class British man who lived in the late 19th through mid 20th century... so of course he was. But being racist is not the same as being a white supremacist. White supremacism is a racist ideology, but it is far more than that.
Secondly, none of that makes Wicca itself inherently racist. If a racist writes a cupcake recipe, that cupcake recipe doesn't become racist. Additionally, Wicca (while founded by Gardner) was equally put together by Doreen Valiente. Who, again, might have been a racist person (find me a white British person from the 20th century who never did anything racist and I'll eat my hat), but definitely not a white supremacist.
If you're going to make massive declarations like that, you better come to the table with proof. And if you think everyone should stop doing anything that a problematic person ever did, even if that thing itself was not the problematic thing... you're going to find out pretty much everything in witchcraft will end up being offlimits.
Purity culture has no place here, nor does black and white thinking. There are a few absolute rights and wrongs in the world, but 90% of stuff falls into a shade of gray -- and we spend most of our time in those gray spaces like it or not.
I've talked a couple times about how I don't use this blog much anymore for various reasons. At first, the biggest reason was some of the harassment I received for being a male witch. I'm nonbinary now so IDK if that even matters anymore, but more recently It's been another reason anyway: Wicca has a terrible reputation in online spaces, so I very often don't exactly feel welcome. I got very tired of opening every introduction with an apology for being my religion.
This was upsetting, but fine for awhile. I've been initiated as a Gardnerian Wiccan in the last couple years so I was content with my little offline community. But recently I was hosting a potluck with friends of mine and had a friend's spouse, who knows my faith, look me in the eyes and tell me about how much they dislike Wicca. I just changed the subject at the time but I haven't been able to let it go. So I want to talk about it a bit. I'm open to discussion, even criticism, if people aren't hateful.
There's a lot I could talk about, but I think I'll start with defining Wicca because I think that will help get us all on the same page. I might rant a bit but I promise its important. Wicca is an initiatory mystery cult assembled in early 20th century England by a man named Gerald Gardner.
Let me go into detail about the parts of this definition:
Being an "initiatory" religion means one cannot become Wiccan without undergoing an initiation into the religion. In this case that initiation must be done by someone who is already Wiccan, meaning all Wiccans trace their initiatory lineage back to Gardner. We call that a "closed practice," if you know that term better.
Being a "mystery" religion means that, upon initiation, members take oaths of secrecy to not speak to non-members about our gods, practices, or even identities. I would be breaking my oaths to tell you much of anything about what we do, the gods we follow, or the names of other Wiccans. This is a feature of many closed practices both modern and ancient.
A "cult" is a small religious group with few members. People use it as a scary term for terrible groups, but this is the classical definition. I'm sure most of your know that lol.
Wicca was founded in the early 20th century, this is not up for debate. Gardner went public with (parts) of the religion in 1950s as anti-witchcraft laws were appealed in the interest of drumming up interest from potential new members, and we're certain it was created not too long before that. There have been times people thought the religion to be much older, even Gardner said it was, but this has been thoroughly disproven.
Finally, notice I said Wicca was "assembled" by Gardener, not "created" or "founded." Studying the pagan and occult practices at the time make it obvious Gardner built the religion not purely from his own mind, but from a mix of influences common among the writing, culture, and occult practices of his time (many of these ARE much older than the 1950s, but the proto-wiccan witchcraft religion Gardner claims exists was not). Gardnerian Wiccans admit this freely. Gardner is not viewed as a saint or as someone who was divinely inspired. He was a man with a good idea, an idea that HAS CHANGED since he created it.
After reading all this you may be thinking: "Wait, this doesn't sound like the wicca/wiccans I know! Most wiccans I've spoken to practice on their own without a coven, they speak freely of their beliefs (even going so far as to try convincing me they're true), and they built their own practice by appropriating the beliefs of others. They certainly tell me what gods they follow, and even claim my gods are just part of theirs!"
I've met these people too, I once was one. They're called, as I'm sure you know, "Eclectic Wiccans." Lets talk about them.
I have no ill will towards Eclectic Wiccans, as I said I was one for many years, but I DO hold issue with their name: I am so sorry but it is not the same religion as Wicca. Traditional Wicca is a closed practice (no, not all of its information has leaked or been made public like is often claimed), which means non-members cannot claim it. After initiation I had a LOT to learn, it is simply not the same religion. It is a VALID religion, as all are, but not the same one.
Despite this, it is Eclectic Wicca and its habits which has done so much damage to the reputation of Wicca over the years. Some of its problems were inherited from Gardner, yes, but many others are due to its own new beliefs or misinterpretations of what it thinks we do. (Side note: Gardnerian Wicca also often does work to undo many of the prejudices Gardner had. Remember how I said I'm nonbinary? Gardner would have hated that, but he's not in charge anymore. It cannot be said that Wicca is "rotten from the start," as some do, when it is actively evolving and improving as a living practice. My official title is even technically "priestex.")
I mean... is anyone surprised Wicca has a reputation for appropriation when 99% of so-called "Wiccans" are appropriating their own religion? Wicca is initiatory, making it a closed practice. Of course the people ignoring that are ignoring the boundaries of other closed practices too. Wicca is a mystery religion, which means the gods and practices of Eclectic Wiccans are not necessarily the same as Traditional Wiccans since we very much did not tell them all the details. Hell, you should hear what I've heard some other initiated Wiccans say about the modern concept of "divine masculine and feminine" that many solitary witches love, it would send certain early 2000s Eclectic Wiccans into a spiral.
So why do we let these two DIFFERENT religions effect eachother's reputation? I am not an Eclectic Wiccan, and their religion is no longer recognizable to me. They are obviously free to practice their own faith, but it isnt the same one I am following. So can we please stop making assumptions about one based on the other? Eclectic Wicca needs a new name, once that reflects that it is something else. If you have an issue with WICCA it should mean the real Wicca, though keep in mind that it is a mystery religion so you may not know everything about it...
And, as a final note, I want to be clear that I really don't hold much ill will towards Eclectic Wiccans, even if I sounded harsh here. I'm just frustrated because any other religion would get to call out appropriation, but just the idea of "appropriating wicca" is considered laughable because of someone else ruining my faith's reputation and ignoring that it isn't open. I'm not telling them to stop using what they learned from us, just to recognize that it isnt the SAME. There's nothing wrong with following your own path and recognizing its something new. Gardnerian Wicca isn't even 100 years old, its okay for something to be modern and unique.
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